Why I Am Waiting To Buy We Happy Few

Every so often there is a game that releases that I’ve been anticipating for months, sometimes years, to play. If I’m lucky, that game will hits a preview program that will me to play the game early and go through the growing pains for other players. Essentially for the game developer it’s the easiest way for them to have game testers, without actually paying for massive amounts of testers.

We Happy Few was released on July 26th via the Xbox Preview Program; a game that I have been following since its announcement E3 of 2015. I downloaded the game, eager to try it out, and typically I play the free portion and then purchase. The only difference this time is I didn’t make the purchase.

Hear me out before I receive a mob with pitchforks and torches at my doorstep. I liked what I played and I am excited to play even more of the game. Like Ark: Survival Evolved, it samples the survival genre aspects. Like The Long Dark it has an open world element. Unlike the prior two, there is a storyline that also occupies the game. For this reason alone, I’ve decided to forgo the preview experience.

From what I’ve played of the game within the trial played, there was a very creepy and sad environment. You can tell that the people in the game had already been through a lot; many of them seen to have a craze sent over them. This led me to do the only I knew to do, create more havoc and make their terrible lives even more dreary.

This is where I stopped.

I know, the first argument to be had is that the campaign story is not currently present in the preview. That is true, yes, but it also has less aspects that I’ve experienced thus far that would help keep the game from becoming stale. For example, anyone who knows me, knows how much I love playing Ark. The ability to form communities, tame prehistoric beasts to do your bidding and build the townships of your dreams, is everything my alley needs. With so much variation in each server, I cannot deny that I haven’t found myself on the end of boredom at the same time.

Rumors have it that the campaign will be finding its way to the game before it leaves the preview, so I could very well play the game and the campaign, but it takes away the allure. I’m not the kind of gamer that can play the same story many times over and over. Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V are perfect examples of great stories, but I am finding myself only playing a few missions at a time before booting up another game like Overwatch.

The game still has a lot of intrigue to it and I cannot wait to play it. I cannot wait to earn the achievements and see what led the dystopia to its current state. We Happy Few is still one of the games I cannot wait to play in 2016.